inverse_bloom

You know that could be nice, the colors seem a bit dull to me. Even changes just to the top banner would great. I think your just managing to be online between the times moderators arent. For instance this last week i've spotted them over several occassions. Just a slight digression, does the UK get bottlenecked internet connectivity or something?

My vote goes for half life 1 because unfortunately i haven't played half life 2. It was suppose to come with my radeon 9600 XT graphics card upon redeeming a serial code contained on the packaging, mid 2003. It was tricky, this serial or whatever voided some sort of warranty, but if you sent it in to ATI at the time you'd get Half life 2 as advertised. It all turned to crud however and thousands of people didn't get the offer, crappy. Despite this, i still seem more inclined towards purchasing ATI then NVIDIA. Maybe one day i'll play half life 2.

I kinda agree with kleong, my very first impression of the site was it reminded of the genre of sites made in the period 95 - 98. I'm not necessarily saying that is a bad thing, but without a doubt it has that aesthetic quality about it. One simple change that i think would benefit your site would be to have some recently dated news on the main page, like the major happenings for 2009. My justification behind this suggestion is people will probably have the same impression as myself and you need to reinforce that your business is current and going strong. I recommend center aligning all text on the large main column. It will look much more professional with minimal effort . Also with your shortcut cloud at the bottom, it would be preferable to include 3 shortcuts per a line where there are 2. Regarding search engine optimization, it's very difficult to determine what result you would get by cutting a few paragraphs out of your homepage and placing those on better fitting pages. But the advantage of doing it is people who do find your site will be more likely to spend more time reading it, as it is better designed. Your meta tags are decently utilized. I dont know if you aware of it, but there are some google tools that allow you more insight as to what keywords and phrases are mostly being entered in search engines at the moment. Here is a link - https://www.google.com/trends/# Just type in "dog breeders" in the top field and enjoy!

Hey i was wondering how some people on the trap have changed the text underneath their avatars?Right now mine says "Super Member" for which i want changed to "Super Duper Member". Any idea's how people are doing it? I can't find that option in my controls, is it up to the mods to make that change?

Nice comp specs, if i had anywhere near half that i reckon i'd be quite content. That comp would be great for 3d work, one particular 3d model i have made would quite probably benefit from that much ram (model is a stomper with full raytrace rendering, etc). Your comp would also be great for emulating certain game consoles (purchased games of course) perhaps on ps2 or the old dreamcast (the dreamcast emulator supposedly does an excellent job). Imagine how quickly you'll be flying through photoshop filters and video editing. You should try video compositing if you dont already.

From time to time i wear my steal capped sneakers (originally purchased for work). Although i don't seek out trouble, i often think if trouble came my way on the occasion that i wear these, i could deal with it adequately without personal legal risks.

From what ive gathered Vim and Emacs are for serious coders. Apparently these editors are much more speedier than the standard graphical IDE. So much so that many get to a certain standard of coding where Vim or Emac's is like a necessary step to progress further. For example for the very adept, these individuals apparently dazzle with the speed they operate. But like you i ask myself the same questions. Personally i used emacs for a bit of scheme, (lisp) programming. I found the absense of syntax highlighting the biggest issue for me, for which i wasnt too interested looking into further. I dont see Emacs or Vim as particularly high on the enjoyment scale though.

The Sandisk titanium are apparently good, i guess due to the strength of the casing. I looked into this issue a couple of months ago and consistently i found webpages recommending sandisk for those who dont want to shell out too much on flash drives. To be honest thats the first i've heard about transcend's reputation. Kingston have always had very good reputation with computer ram, so i suppose they would make reliable flash drives.Personally ive always stuck with sandisk, ive never had any problems with the two i own. 1 in particular - is about 2 years old, has had alot of use and still works like new.Another good brand much like kingston is corsair. Apparently they make excellent reliable drives, the only issue is they are expensive. If you want performance then a good choice might be a patriot xporter xt.

What if the douche bags where holding bags of cash. What then?, the kitten or the nasty douche bags loaded with "small" coins? Personally, If any of the douche bags were my neighbours that would be quite a conundrum.

Hey thats too cool for school, im scraping for inspiration today... Anyways, Im not sure if you'd want to try to hack it... depends what software it has on it. Even if the hard drive was replaced it is possible to be partially locked in by the bios, in which case i'd be very careful what you choose to do from that point onwards.The other thing is, laptops are tracked by the Mac address on their network hardware, i think from the mainboard also, although i'm not totally sure on that one. So once you login to the net you leave tracks that are tracable. Gee, they should have been doing that ten or so years ago, then i'd have something to hack to pieces. Seriously though, just use it for what it is intended for, or at least try to.

I dont think i can make any suggestions what topics you could use. But just to clarify for those who may be able to, are you writing a thesis on "anything" to do with computer science or does it need to be more specific? Does it need to be language specific? I found this link which could give you ideas - http://python.objectis.net/index_html Unfortunately it wasn't the link i was looking for but it still may help. Perhaps one of the topics i find most interesting is robotics and neural networking. There is a python module that caters for that called "Pyro" but again i dont know if thats what you need.

Hi Robomaster, nice alias! You'll fit in well here at Xisto judging from your post. I'm not sure about the standards of service other host providers are providing, but Xisto is good and reliable. Have a nice day.

Welcome, travelling and designing huh? sounds like a pretty good deal to me. Have fun.

I'm sure there would be alot of people taking advantage of social welfare, which shouldn't. All i can say in that regard is in Australia if you are on the dole for too long you are required to do a certain amount of hours work for it with local councils or whatnot. That really works here, but i dont know to what level this scheme is implemented in America, if at all. I'm not promoting the idea of Socialism as a good thing at all. What i agree with however, is the executive's described above taking pay cut's as a "penalty" for leading their companies astray. For instance many American car manufacturers such as Ford, GM and Chrysler based their strategic positioning on the old expectations that "Americans want big car's".This, despite what market analysis was saying, which was they "had" to go smaller. Globally people were becoming increasingly concerned about fuel prices and also to some degree concerned about the environment. These companies didn't adapt when they needed to, as a consequence they were shooting themselves in the foot years ago. Another example of this is Australia's "General Motors Holden", which is obviously closely affiliated with parent company GM America. Here production of large sedan's remained unchanged because they were banking on the fact that the market would shift back in favor of large cars. As a consequence, our local GM was about to go bankrupt a few months ago and forced to seek financial assistance from parent company GM America to continue. GM Holden has also changed it's focus from producing large cars to smaller ones. Oil companies had a large amount of influence leading American car companies down this path, here are glaring examples where corruption and greed come into the picture. It is here politicians and company heads make decisions based on personal profit or politics, rather than for the good of the company and country. I'm not suggesting that "all" wealthy individuals be taxed heavily, that would be absurd. Capitilism has many benefits, much more than socialism. But the current system of capalism has reached its threshold and needs to be changed. Corporations were initially meant to benefit society by competing for large prospects contracted out by the government, these projects were sold based on how efficiently those companies could perform; said objectives. The point is, corporations were initially set up to benefit society, but for a while now (probably since the mid 90's) they have been drawing resources away. The share market needs more regulation, as that is partially the reason for the current crisis. But also these huge companies need closer attention and more political intervention's when they are needed. There are lot of american's not in a good position right know, who have lost their homes and although recessions are inevitable this one is particularly nasty and a strong indication that some things need to be changed. Obama has gone into damage control, there are certain things he "must" do to restore balance and other things he should do. Although i agree with anyone that his health reforms aren't good, but then again i dont know the full picture there either.

I totally agree with this... forcing the greedy to take pay cuts can only be a good thing. I mean look at our current economical crisis, the way capitalism has been played lately gave these sorts of greedy people the opportunity to take advantage and of course they took what they could. In doing so, they threw the global economic balance totally out and drove many within the populace into distressing situations. The wealth these people acquire is just overkill (especially for the crap business decisions some make on behalf of their corporation, or the service it provides to society). If he genuinely follows through with this and continues along this track, then this will prove him to be an incredibly strong character and a president with the kind of integrity America needs right now.

As some have mentioned in earlier posts, i believe its Mc Donald's commitment for consistent quality standards and their advertising and marketing which are the reasons for their success. By quality standards i dont necessarily mean the food itself, but the standards which Mc Donald's premises are typically maintained. Their restruants always seem to be clean (at least all the ones i've been too) and always have well kept equipment, etc. They are among the best marketer's in the world. Product lines are modified continually, which obviously keeps public attention up. They target their products very specifically and have a knack for motivating kids and parents. All branding associated with Mc Donald's is very well thought out to have its desired effect on people.Also on advertising, i dont know what figures they spend, but i'd imagine whatever it is would be surprising. Not to mention their fierce competitive attitude. (steam rolling the little guys by that i mean small public law suits and dominating over smaller fast food chains)

I think for me its half and half. I supplement the expenses of my hosting account with half of my own money and the rest with the myCents i obtain. Otherwise if i wasnt earning mycents, i'd probably do without hosting and i'd post twice a week on the trap rather than trying every day. But after saying that, its not even about trying to get as much myCents as possible, but more the act of "hoarding" or "collecting" which suits my personality. For me i enjoy reading what others have to say, i appreciate the opportunity to absorb opinions and to offer something which i believe others may value. Most of all for me personally, i appreciate the community aspect of Xisto. For instance the customary "hello's" offered every day and the various personality's evident here. It's a more enriching experience compared to Facebook for example, where you learn nothing, talk crud mostly and generally just waste bandwidth playing Mobsters or whatever.

I definitely dont play the Bagpipes... little bit too loud for me. I used to play electric guitar, i had a black and white Fender Strat, a Sunburst Epiphone, some sort of obscurely named shredding axe (Floyd Rose bridge) and a nylon string crappo.I currently have an Australian branded electric acoustic, which is ok but i should have got a good Yamaha selling for the same price at the time. I really enjoy playing fingerstyle but i dont play so much anymore. This, despite the fact i had some great promise when i was younger. (I just didnt want to get up on stage)

For me personally, Silent Hill 3 or Metroid Prime. But i know for sure that the mario series is one of the best selling of all time. Really though, this question gets raised so often with so many different results, that it's pointless to try. In 1995 - 1997 Chronos Trigger, Goldeneye 007 and SuperMario 64 were among the best. In 1998-1999 it was half life 1 and System Shock 2 that were considered best. On reflection though, many believe Zelda:Ocarina of time to be better (1998). Then there's games such as Grand Theft Auto 4, Grand Turismo 4, Super Mario World, these are all games that ive seen mentioned on the net or in magazines as the "best" games of all time. I think they are all the best.

Actually I just received my updated MyCents over the past week and a bit of update inactivity, i was credited with a little over $2 dollars which was exactly what i was expecting. So... goodie for me and probably for everyone else too.

Just to add to Nitin's post, the old Pentium M's - the "Banias" series are particularly good for low power use. Im not sure how they compare against Atom cpu's, but i know for sure you get decent performance from a 1.4 Ghz "Banias" gauged against how much power it uses. You would need to purchase a 2nd hand laptop to get one of these, as unfortunately they were never made available on PC's.Not to be confused with the Pentium M "Dothans" which have a larger cache, but arent designed as well and produce much more heat. Actually after a quick check, a 1.5Ghz Banias has a TDP of about 10 W, whilst the Atom typically around 2-4 W. But the atoms performance typically compares more to a Pentium 3 than that of a Pentium 4 M. Basically as youd expect, the atom is more efficient but a 1.5 banias is quicker, unless you go for an upmarket atom altenative that uses more power anyway.

Yeah crows are interesting to watch... most other birds suck except for willy wag tails, kookabura's and pterodactyl's . @sheepdogs post, Sorry to hear about your goat causing so much trouble might be a good idea get rid of her horns, i imagine it would be like docking the tail of a dog kinda cruel, but not the end. Better than ending its life.

It really depends, to be honest i was only showing those games to help you gauge what is possible with Pygame. If you think in terms of games like glactica and such, they are best if you follow a tutorial as you will get the experience you need to look at making your own games. Experience is important because programing theory is relatively easy to understand at first glimpse. But in practice you'll find implementing the ideas you have is a totally different kettle of fish depending on problem complexity. The good thing is i can honestly say if you really want to make small games Pygame is one of the best options there is to have a go at first. Pygame has much the same methodologies as Python does, which is to keep programmers away from dealing with lower level details. Its built over SDL, so where Python utilizes much of C to do its stuff, so does Pygame over SDL. SDL is kinda like a universal platform which utilizes hardware for multimedia rich apps. It's not exactly like OpenGL or DirectX, but sort of similar concept (it doesnt get as close to the hardware and so doesn't perform as they do). If you think you might be a little more serious about programming in future, then a good path to go down might be learning Java. If you think you might be that way inclined i'd suggest looking here - http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/ (if that link doesn't work - Introduction to computer science, stanford methodology) Basically its a whole introductory university course othered online, the only catch is obviously you want get any assistance. Although i'm relatively unexperienced on the matter, i'd probably be inclined to say its one of the worlds best courses offered on learning introductory programming. It's professor is funny which gives you motivation to keep up with the lectures and the material is very well though out. (Although it will require 10 gigs of bandwidth to eventually get the whole course, spread out over 10-15 weeks). You'll make a couple of games while also learning the ACM library. The ACM library is aimed at teaching Java to individuals in a less sophisticated manner, by generalizing the details (its a library that inherents from other libraries). Its kinda like Python and Pygame, but is a shortcut to getting into Java. Thats exactly what i did i basically hopped from Python/Pygame, did a little C++ up to recursion and pointers/references, then on to the stanford course. The ACM library is kinda like Pygame but you'll have to set up Eclipse which if i remember correctly is a Java IDE (could be as easy as - extract, then click). Although you'll have to invest some time learning Eclipse. (It wont be as easy as pygame but could be more desirable in the end).

Hi Shiva, SEO executive? Do you enjoy your job? The trap is a friendly place to share insights and to get free hosting in the process. Hope you like it.

ActivePython definitely is free if you don't go after Enterprise versions. I think Komodo does actually look like it has more features but maybe not applicable for your needs right now. To be honest that is the first time i had a close look at Pyglet, after having a quick look at the page Pyglet looks like it will give you simple tools but you will have to fill in the rest. With Pyglet you get the benefit of not having to install additional dependencies. Pygame really rocks! Although you may end up dealing with a couple of additional dependencies which may need to installed from source (not sure). Pyweek is a competition held quarterly throughout the year, that's where you find the best games produced with Pygame. A link to some games are here - http://www.pygame.org/tags/pyweek Although to run those games you definitely will have to install some additional dependencies like Numpy, Numeric... notes should be included within the archives to let you know what was used to produce the game and what you need.